


Hounded

by GalileaGalilei (orphan_account)



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bloodlust, Gen, Regis out of bounds, Somewhat, The Humanist - Freeform, a child gets hurt, but he survives, this has an insane amount of drama and vampire-y stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 20:24:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11654073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/GalileaGalilei
Summary: Regis has settled down as a barber-surgeon in Dillingen. Things don't go quite as planned when he encounters his first bloodied patient.





	Hounded

**Author's Note:**

> It has happened. Lea has made herself an AO3 account because Tumblr just wasn't for me anymore. Anyway, this is the first story of a bunch of stories I'm going to transfer onto the Archive. The others will follow sometime within the next few days... Enjoy :)
> 
> P.S. As is usual for me, this features the Humanist as Regis' former teacher. That's a headcanon Laura and me made up ages ago that has kind of stayed with me. Just so you don't wonder...

He had forgotten the life in a town was – above all else – loud. Loud and brash and colourful and confusing. Different from villages, and most certainly different from the life he had lead this past half of a century. Far away from civilisation he had ventured, in hopes of finding a more civilised side within himself – a paradox, was it not? It had indeed been one of his better ideas, yet it hadn’t taken too long before he had realised he would never entirely find what he was so desperately seeking without watching humanity as a whole in – how had his ancestors worded it? – _its natural environment_. If not used for cruel purposes, this was a valid thing to do.

Regis was ripped from his thoughts quite suddenly as a wooden cart creaked by his half-opened door, the owner shouting out something that sounded like: “Carrots and celery! Fresh at the market today!”

 _Yes_ , the vampire mused in silence, _if there is one thing humans can be, it is loud._ It was endearing, truly, the way they would try to understand each other across a market place, their voices ever ringing in a vampire’s ears. Moments like those reassured him that he had indeed made the right decision. They were thankful for what he was doing in Dillingen. Doctors were scarce and thus the few ones present could demand any pay they wanted for their services. Regis was a mere barber, yet equipped with skills that extended far beyond surgery. He could easily cost the others their occupation, but it was not in his interest to do so. He didn’t need the money; that was the only reason for why he didn’t expect to be paid. Was it risky? Yes, it was. In the North, they were far more watchful. He could only hope they would never suspect him of being anything other than human. But this was entirely his responsibility. He should simply never give them reason to doubt him. Which was – as many things in life were – easier said than done.

He heard footsteps approaching, hectic and determined. A heartbeat driven by panic reached his ears; and something else reached his nose, made his mouth water before he had even realised what it was. His breath caught in his throat upon attempting to exhale. He coughed into his hand, turning around abruptly as the door to his shop swung open, colliding with the wall and nearly sending some of the flasks and clay containers on the nearest shelf toppling to the floor.

A man stood in his doorway, panting and sobbing, a bloodied bundle in his arms. The bundle, Regis realised through his slightly fogged thoughts, was a boy, writhing and whimpering in pain. “Master Barber!” the man bellowed in his desperation. “A dog has bitten him! To-Tore i-into his le-leg.”

“Lay him down on the table!,” Regis ordered, already on his way to hastily clear the wooden surface of everything he had laid there before; some of the notes he simply brushed carelessly to the ground. The parchment could handle it.

The man complied, placing the lithe, shaking child onto the table before withdrawing, just as Regis had hoped he would – except that he stopped after a mere few inches to grant Regis better access to the boy. Nothing, it seemed, could drive him away from his son’s side. Humans and vampires were not so different in that regard. Nonetheless, the vampire could not afford to have anyone nearby. Not now. Not in his state. Not ever. He worked best when he was by himself without the presence of another being taking up space in the sensory understanding of his surroundings.

Regis manoeuvred the man over to his door, ushered him outside in the gentlest way he could manage. The man refused to budge, and although Regis was well aware of his own ability to _make_ him, he could hardly use his full strength to set him outside the door. “He’s my son!” the man begged. Regis’ heart clenched painfully at the desperate quiver in his voice.

“I will take good care of him, and I will call on you as soon as you can see him. But for now, you have to _leave_.” He truly did not want to resort to using his mental powers on this poor father, but there was no time to look for another solution, so he forced the man to stumble off towards the home he came from.

He leaned against the door after he’d closed it, splaying his fingers wide against the dark wood, feeling its texture, every splinter, grounding himself before getting to work. _It’s selfish of you_ , his inner voice chided, _to even think of it_.

Quelling his desire, he pushed himself away from the door, stood upright, and countered: _No. It is not selfish to long for this sweet blood. It’s selfish to endanger humans in your search for inner peace._ Now, however, was not the time for arguments between a man and a beast living in the same shell; not when there was a child that needed to be saved by proficient hands. The hands of a man more than the claws of a beast.

The boy cried, more from shock than pain, Regis guessed. He could smell the adrenaline coursing through the child’s veins, and was thankful for it. It tainted the blood, masking its normally intoxicating scent with something he could scientifically explain.

He bent over the boy’s leg, examining the wound, his breath held until the illusion of burning made his lungs feel like they were about to burst. He knew it was a lie this body used to try and coax him into breathing, just to make him inhale the scent permeating the air around him. He didn’t need oxygen. Reason triumphed over instinct – for now.

With fingers that resembled something like steady, he reached for the alcohol he kept stored on the far-right end of the table and disinfected his hands. The sharp smell burned his nose, his tongue, all the way down his trachea until there was no trace left of the blood; until the searing pain was everything his oversensitive nose could register.

Then, he finally reached over to push and cut torn and bloodied clothes away from the boy’s leg. The wound lay bare before him, deep gashes and the marks of canine teeth. No, not canine. Longer. Sharper. Monstrous. _Tearing flesh, spitting out sinews and blood clots, simply swallowing until there was nothing left, nothing but the taste, the-_

Dizzying red spilled over his hands, staining the ring on his finger. His fingers twitched. His control could not be trusted. He was distracted by it, hadn’t seen anything like it in years. He had cured headaches, had pulled teeth, had stopped infections from spreading. He only now realised he had never treated a single flesh wound.

 _Should it truly be like this forever?_ , he wondered, the voice in his head doubtful and worried. _You barely holding on? How can you focus on saving a life if all you think about is taking it?_

He would kill this boy, he knew. His fangs ached to grow; the knuckles of his fingers itched as he fought to keep his claws from extending past their usual length. Transformation was never painful, although it might look like it to bystanders. What truly caused pain was trying to prevent it from happening. Sweat gathered in his eyebrows, running down his forehead like someone had spilled water over his head. A keening sound clawed its way out of his throat, ending in a growl that reverberated in his chest.

The boy was delirious. Although he looked at Regis with half-closed lids, what he saw could always be attributed to hallucinations caused by loss of blood later on, if necessary at all. He might not even remember it, might not recall seeing reddened eyes and blood seeping from bitten lips, facial features distorting into a grimace vaguely resembling a bat.

 _Stop the bleeding, for the gods’ sake, stop the bleeding! He’s bleeding to death. Are you too blind to see, boy?_ A voice – unexpected, not his own – reverberated through his mind. He could nearly feel shoulders being shook by firm hands trying to bring him back. _Think. If your body is weak, your mind is all you have. Think, Emiel. Focus. Focus!_ Absentmindedly, he slipped his ring off his finger, holding it in his closed fist, letting his thumb press into the protruding rubies until it became nearly painful.

_“I’m not strong enough for this!” His own voice, so desperate, like that of a terrified boy. “Please don’t make me. Don’t make me lose control.”_

_“You won’t.” The voice calmed him, and the man it belonged to offered him the cup a second time. “Your fear will make you lose control, so you mustn’t be fearful. It’s that simple. Trust in your own strength, Emiel. Keep it in your mouth, don’t swallow it down.”_

_“I can’t. I won’t be able to-”_

_“Yes, you are right in that. In this state, you will not. Reach for that peaceful place the way I have taught you. A higher and better reason. You know it’s to be found within you. You know. You’ve experienced it before. I trust in you.”_

_Emiel scrunched his eyes closed and tipped the cup against his lips. Blood flooded his mouth._

The blood wouldn’t stop pulsing, wouldn’t stop taunting and torturing him, but it was easily stopped. Regis snapped out of his lethargy, blinking rapidly to clear the veil of sweat and unshed tears that stole his sight from him, only to wonder whether he had forfeited this child’s life by being caught up in his inner struggle for too long. The last bit of rationality in his mind informed him that it had only been several short seconds.

He grabbed a leather belt, put it around the boy’s thigh, pushed one end through the silver buckle and twisted the other around his hand, already slippery from the blood, to pull the leather strap taut. The boy’s body spasmed from the unexpected pressure. He was still conscious, but he was barely hanging on.

Regis leaned over him. “Can you hear me?” he asked, satisfied to see the flow of blood slowing, the life no longer pulsing from the boy’s leg. The boy nodded drowsily, opening and closing his mouth with nothing more than a few choked sounds coming out. They might have been sobs, or they might have been pleas. His eyes rolled wildly as he struggled to look towards his own wound. Regis gently grabbed his chin and forced him to look into his eyes, instead. “I’m sorry, my little curious one, but this is not for you to see.” The boy’s lids fluttered shut as his body went limp. A bloodied hand cupped the child’s place cheek, Regis leaning down, his forehead touching the boy’s for only a second. “I’m sorry”, he repeated his words, their meaning entirely different. “I nearly took your life.”

The next steps were simple. Clean the wound. Close it. Let the boy rest. How small the wound seemed when he looked at it with a clear mind. The teeth of a dog, clearly visible in the sunlight flooding his surgery through the coloured glass. No vampire had torn into the flesh there.

Regis, for a moment blissfully unaware that there was still blood on his fingers, clapped into his hands once and got to work. “Thank you”, he murmured to the nothingness looming over his shoulder watching him and his progress as he laid the necessary stitches – a nothingness that could have been the form of a man once, ancient and wise, smiling proudly. Regis’ fingers never once trembled.

 

—

 

“Your eyes,” the boy remarked, sitting up against the wall, balancing a cup of herbal brew in his lap, warming his hands as he wrapped his fingers around it. “They were all red.”

“Merely an infection,” Regis murmured.

“Was I close to dying?” the boy asked with all the brutal bluntness only children could possess. Several days had passed since the incident, and the boy would soon walk again. The memories of shock and pain had already started to fade inside his young mind, still so full of the ability to heal completely. With time, even the fever-fuelled (or so he had told him, anyway) images of Regis’ monstrous face would lose their sharp and terrible details.

“You were,” Regis replied honestly. “But you did not.”

“You saved me.” The smile was brighter than Regis deserved.

 _How were you able to save him, in the end?_ , the well-known voice asked in his master’s good-natured tone. _The hands of man with a mind enhanced by what is more than human. You have acquired abilities no human would have time to learn. So many years, and you have dedicated them to helping mankind. You are so many things, Emiel, but one thing you are not: selfish._

“I think it best to get your father now. He must be worried sick about you.”

The boy chuckled. “Lest you have to take care of him, too!”


End file.
